Standard Pauper Info Part 1: Gatherling

One of my personal frustrations with the Standard Pauper format is the lack of good, solid information and strategy on this small but important format. Despite the fact that Standard Pauper is now an official Magic Online format, there is surprisingly little content about it available on the web. This particular issue was discussed recently in the Standard forums on PDCMagic.com, which you can view here. So, I thought I would take some time this week to cover the few sources of information that are out there and link them in this article so as to get this information out to as many people as possible and collect them all in one useful place.

Today I will limit my discussion to one of the best sources information on the Standard Pauper called Gatherling. Gatherling is a special tool hosted on PDCMagic.com that creates a database of all the events run through this site. By going to the Metagame tab and selecting the Standard Format, one can see a full tournament report from both of the weekly Player Run Events that this site supports. By clicking on a particular event, you get the following information:

Here you can see which decks finished in the Top 8, and who was piloting each deck. You can also see a quick and dirty breakdown of how the pilot classified his or her deck, and what percentage each color was represented in the Top 8. Of lesser important, you can also see the date of the event, the total number of players, and what percentage of players submitted their decklist for the event.

Below the Top 8 information you can find further information about the metagame:

Here you can view what every player in the event was playing, what their final record was, and how many players were playing a particular color combination. From either location, if you click on a deck name, you get a bunch of great information about that particular decklist and its matchups in the events. Take a look:

 

From here you get access to the full decklist, which includes an autocard feature that will display the card in question when you hover over its name. You can also view the pilot's record for the event, with a full breakdown of who and what he or she faced during each round. From this screen, you can also view the color and converted mana costs statistics for the deck, the record of other pilot's running this same decklist, and any comments left by the pilot for that event.

By making good use of this great tool, you can gather a great deal of useful information about what's going on in Standard Pauper, how particular decks fare against other decks, and which archetypes are the most popular or most successful in the format. And by looking at winning decklists, one can also get a good feel for the power of particular cards, analyze particular strategies, or even get some ideas for how to construct a solid manabase for the format.

So have you used Gatherling before? What do you use it for? What other features of this great tool do you find helpful? As always, your comments and feedback are appreciated.

 Next time, I will examine some of the other sources of information on the Standard Pauper format. Thanks for reading!